I have no crystal ball on intent, but I'd tend to say, why not? You can explicitly increase their 'abilities', which wouldn't _exclude_ ones in keywords; and the narrator, it states, can add abilities, so why not the poor schmuck who's stumping up the HPs, and cluttering up his character sheet with same?
It just seems rather messy that if I want to up my Warrior sidekick from 17 to 18 I have to do it one ability at a time (pass me a character sheet annex...) on the one hand, or finagle an 'advanced experience/saga' whole-keyword increase by some sort of special pleading, as opposed to the common currency of every other such change in the same, to wit the HP-denominated one.
> Can't be like a two for one, however, because then the player could put all
> bonuses into the follower, and get a keyword with double the total bonus on
> it. Probably have to be accompanied by a "no more raised on the follower
> than on the PC" caveat. Hmmm...
Well, I already suggested the obvious adaptation of the HW rule. I'm sure there are all sorts of tweaks one could make depending what one's take on 'sanity' is, and how 'constrained' one feels it ought to be. I toyed with basing the follower's ratings (and now, _maximum_ possible such) from the character's fifth best ability, rather than his highest, to avoid perverse incentives along the 'johnny one ability' lines. There's also the possible of issue of 'like vs. unlike' followers and abilities; arguably it's less of a crock/more "realistic" for say, a lawspeaker to have talented lawspeaking cronies than it is for him to have similarly talented 'muscle'. And the cost/benefit ratio was entirely off my head, and might be out of whack on mature reflection for me, never mind for anyone else. But these are details: I'm personally more worried about making attractive enough to do at all, than about it being 'abused'.
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